Monday, January 9, 2012

More Google grief

I had just posted last week's blog when something even more egregious showed up on my monitor.

I have three friends, who don't know each other, and live in three widely separated states. Let's call them Tom, Dick, and Harry. Over time each has sent me an amusing email, and so we have built up a pattern. One of them sends me an item, and I forward it to the others. (I don't forward everything: Tom sends the occasional somewhat raunchy story, and I prefer to delete such offerings than to risk offending Dick and Harry.)

Tom sends more items than the other two, and I seldom originate such emails. However, on this occasion Dick sends an amusing item, which I start to forward to Tom and Harry. Immediately, in a red font, there appears a message from Big Brother Google, suggesting that I would also like to send it to Dick! No way: he just sent it to me... The system isn't sophisticated enough to realize that.

I think there should be a way for me to opt out of this annoying kibitzing of my personal correspondence. Just because I know that Big Brother is reviewing every keystroke doesn't mean that I want to be verbally accosted by Google's asinine comments--in red, yet, as if I'm in danger.

I also noticed a message, presumably added by Google when I composed a email, to the effect that an invitation would accompany my outgoing email. I'm used to the incessant entreaties when I'm writing to someone not on Gmail, to "invite" them to join. Are automatic messages to that effect now being sent without my specific approval?